Global Sustainability Governance

Earth system governance is a deeply political space marked by conflicting interests, imbalances in power and numerous relations of inequality and injustice. Power and inequality are not only key dimensions of intergovernmental relations, for example when governments negotiate treaties or set up global powerful institutions such as the World Trade Organization. Inequality and power are also key dimensions, I argue, in the nongovernmental sphere of earth system governance, such as global change science or global civil society. 

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I am interested here especially in the way how global institutions and networks disempower and disadvantage countries in the Global South. I have worked earlier on green unilateralism in global trade in 2001; on the dominance of Northern framings in global change science (e.g., here); and 25 years ago in my PhD on North-South power relations in global governance.

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This year I am finalising a book with Carole-Anne Sénit, in which we analyse domination of Northern actors and Northern frames in global change science, civil society and global governance with a special focus on the least developed countries.

I will blog and tweet about our findings from this research often.

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You can also follow on Twitter the Decolonizing Sustainability Study Group that we have founded, at @DecolonizeSUST.

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A first paper, "In whose name are you speaking? The marginalization of the poor in global civil society" is available open access here.